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Some Reflections on the Theology of Reconciliation

William J. Danaher

03/01/2004

[1] Last January, I attended an academic conference in
Pittsburgh. During a break, we were given the option of visiting
the Andy Warhol Museum or meeting representatives from South
Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC was
established to provide an opportunity for the perpetrators and
victims of atrocities that had occurred under apartheid to receive
forgiveness, amnesty, and healing. Lead by Desmond Tutu, from 1994
-2000, several thousand cases of brutality were resolved peacefully
through a process of confession and absolution. Although the TRC's
accomplishments have been debated, no one doubts that a great deal
of bloodshed was avoided. Indeed, TRC has inspired similar
commissions in places of enduring conflict, such as Northern
Ireland, the Sudan, Columbia, and the Middle East. I asked myself:
Should I go look at silk screens of Marilyn Monroe and Campbell
Soup? Or should I meet some of those responsible for initiating a
new response to injustice - one that substituted degenerative
cycles of violence with regenerative patterns of forgiveness? Like
many others, I chose the latter option.

[2] At the meeting, the representatives were seated a long table
on a stage in a theater. Among their number were persons white and
black, male and female. After some brief remarks, the audience
began to ask questions. The first few were polite and gracious.
Most of us were in awe of these people. But then the academic
scalpels came out. "Just what is truth?" someone asked. "Just what
is reconciliation?" asked another. The representatives were trained
psychologists, ethicists, and theologians. But these simple
questions caught them off-guard. Each offered answers from his or
her perspective and experience, but it became apparent that there
were no straightforward answers that avoided contradiction, even
among the representatives themselves. Some in the audience remarked
that these contradictions signified conceptual confusion and drift.
In response, the representatives became impatient with the abstract
nature of the discussion. One theologian from the TRC - a large
white man with white hair, describe how richer he was from his role
in creating a different future for South Africa. But in end, he
only could recount what he had witnessed. When this did not
satisfy, he became angry and refused to explain himself or justify
his actions further.

[3] Since that afternoon, I have thought about these questions.
What is truth? Everyone agrees that truth-telling is the first step
in reconciliation. Reconciliation requires a recounting of
atrocities before forgiveness becomes possible. In the face of
atrocities, however, telling the truth is complicated and
difficult. Particularly in South Africa, the truth was not
straightforward. The line between perpetrator and victim was often
blurred - those who defended apartheid and those who overthrew it
both committed atrocities. Moreover, the truth told after a
conflict is often colored by our own experience - it is not the
truth of a historical event, but a truth that arises from traumatic
wounds. What is reconciliation? Everyone agrees that reconciliation
is a process of letting go of the past in order to live at peace in
the future. The process of reconciliation, however, is not
scientific - there is no set procedure for bringing together
persons who have wounded each other. Reconciliation is more like an
art one masters with difficulty. Indeed, several persons question
whether there is a fixed process of reconciliation at all.
I have also thought about the white theologian. Could it be that,
in the end, he was not an expert who could demonstrate his
technique, but a witness to something over which he had no power?
Contact with this power cannot be bought or sold; it was not a
technique that yielded predicable results or something produced at
will. It was a gift received through surrender.

[4] I cannot comprehend the meaning of truth and reconciliation.
I suspect that no one can. But I offer the following as a kind of
meditative prayer on two key passages in the New Testament on
reconciliation. In Ephesians 2:14-18, we read that reconciliation
is accomplished through Jesus Christ. Christ has broken down the
wall of hostility that exists between Jews and Gentiles, for "he is
our peace." The peace referred to here is not merely the end of
hostilities, but shalom, the presence of harmony and
wellbeing. Christ is this peace, for he has created "in
himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace."
Christ has "reconciled both groups to God in one body through the
cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came
and proclaimed peace to those who were far off and to those who
were near; for through him both of us have access tin one Spirit to
the Father." In 2 Corinthians 5:11-21, we read that this
reconciliation changes radically the way Christians treat each
other. "From now on," Paul writes, "we regard no from a human point
of view," for "if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation:
everything old has passed away; see, everything has become
new!" This gift of becoming a new creation is "from God, who
has reconciled us to himself through Christ; that is, in Christ God
was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses
against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us."
Therefore, having received this birthright, Paul admonishes his
listeners to "be reconciled to God."

[5] As John W. de Gruchy notes in Reconciliation (2002), these
two passages identify a "Pauline" conception of reconciliation. At
the forefront are Trinitarian themes. In both passages, the cross
of Christ lies at the center. In the Ephesians passage, the
cross represents the actual point in which Christ reconciles the
world "in his body." In the passage from 2 Corinthians, the cross
makes the ministry of reconciliation possible through enacting a
prior reconciliation between God and humanity. As a result, "the
love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has
died for all" so that "those who live might no longer live for
themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them."

[6] In The Wound of Knowledge (1990), Rowan Williams writes that
serious reflection on reconciliation "begins from the experience of
being reconciled, being accepted, being held (however precariously)
in the grace of God." This experience is tied directly to the
cross, the "final control and measure and irritant in Christian
speech." The cross disorients us, providing the possibly of
wholeness, gathering those parts of our lives that resist
integration. If the "heart of 'meaning' is a human story, a story
of growth, conflict and death, every human story, with all its
oddity and ambivalence, becomes open to interpretation in terms of
God's saving work." The cross also de-centers us, turning our
attention to the "other," to those unlike us. As Williams writes,
"the 'un-selfing' involved in union with Christ's death is made
real in the public and social world; the displacing of the ego
becomes a giving 'place' to others, as God has given 'place' to all
in his Son."

[7] But if the cross lies at the center, it shares that center
with the Spirit. Through the Spirit's indwelling, we become new
creatures. Both passages describe the Spirit as new life itself, as
a new world of possibilities, a new future that is ours as a result
of our new identity. Thus, later in 2 Corinthians we read, "now is
the acceptable time," "now is the day of salvation." This state of
possibility, of new birth, resists assimilation and categorization,
which is why the topic of reconciliation frustrates academics. Like
a birth it is chaotic and unpredictable, disrupting our illusions
of control. Indeed, one feature of post-modernity is that there is
little room for surprise, for those things that deviate from the
norm. This is why the normal cycles of violence and vengeance
appear inescapable. Yet the Spirit witnesses that a new future at
hand through forgiveness and reconciliation.

[8] The greatest work of the Spirit is to give us the power to
live cruciform lives patterned after Christ's work of
reconciliation. This is why the theme of imitation recurs
throughout the Pauline writings, a theme that at the same time
incorporates three mysteries: One mystery is that this experience
is not an achievement. As Williams notes, Paul makes clear his
"helplessness" in the face of a "totally demanding and transforming
fact, the death, and life past death, of Jesus the Messiah." The
Christ-like life can only be received as an act of grace and mercy.
Another mystery is that we experience this transformation as good
news, for it makes us aware of our present state of misshapenness,
as well as the vulnerability and cost of true discipleship. The
final mystery is that this obedience is the source of healing and
wholeness. In following Christ, we do not lose ourselves, but
receive our true selves. This is why, when we engage in forgiveness
and reconciliation, we receive our true dignity.

This is Christ's church.

There is a place for you here.
We are the church that shares a living, daring confidence in God's grace. Liberated by our faith, we embrace you as a whole person — questions, complexities and all. Join us as we do God's work in Christ's name for the life of the world.